Humm

T-Mobile USA’s chief executive Philipp Humm is stepping down from his position to accept a job offer from a European wireless carrier.

In a letter to T-Mobile USA staff released Wednesday, company executives disclosed Humm was hoping to leave T-Mobile by the end of September to be with his family in Europe. But now Humm has accepted a position with an unnamed European competitor to T-Mobile and plans to leave immediately.

Chief operating officer Jim Alling assumes the CEO position temporarily at a time when T-Mobile is struggling to regain its identity after a failed merger attempt with AT&T. The company is spending aggressively to upgrade its network to stem subscriber losses numbering 1.65 million contract customers last year.

Humm earlier indicated he wanted to see T-Mobile shed its image of being the place for cheap phones and not-well-respected service. The company has plans to launch its own LTE 4G network and is competing to bring the latest handsets to customers. T-Mobile is positioned between Sprint’s unlimited data and AT&T/Verizon Wireless’ data allowances with steep overlimit fees. T-Mobile limits data use, but does not charge overlimit fees, preferring to throttle data speeds until the next billing date.